


What is simple

by Dienda



Category: True Detective
Genre: Domestic, Friendship, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Post-Series, Shippy Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 20:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2482178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dienda/pseuds/Dienda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marty does get caught, on the sixth night.  Despite Rust’s steady recovery over the last few days Marty keeps waking up in the wee small hours, like clockwork, needing to make sure the other man’s alive and whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [C'est simple](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3113246) by [mariesondetre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariesondetre/pseuds/mariesondetre)



The hospital calls not one hour after they made their escape. Marty is not really surprised because, no shit, it doesn’t take a CID detective to see Rust’s empty room, the visitor’s log, and put two and two together.

He answers on the first ring and goes into his office, shuts the door behind him. Rust is asleep in the bedroom, still wrapped in that god-awful hospital gown; when they finally made it to the bed he was too exhausted to do anything beyond groaning as Marty lowered him onto the mattress. Marty takes the doctor’s scolding in his best apologetic tone, doesn’t raise his voice even when she makes some bullshit threat about calling the police. He promises to sign whatever discharge forms, or waivers, or anything she wants, first thing in the morning.

Marty falls asleep somewhere around midnight. He stays in the bedroom with Rust to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t try to get up in the middle of the night and ends up face-planting on the floor. He’s so tired he doesn’t even notice falling asleep.

 

He opens his eyes at some forgotten hour before dawn; he can’t be sure what woke him up, but he feels a cold sense of dread, like something’s about to happen or he forgot something important that cannot be fixed. Marty turn his head to look at Rust and the trepidation claws at his stomach like a sharp talon. Rust is pale and hollow-cheeked in the barely-there light from the window; quiet and perfectly still.

_Perhaps he has stopped breathing,_ murmurs the horrible side of Marty’s mind. He shakes his head against the thought.

“Rust,” he whispers, tentative. “Hey, Rust.” He touches two fingertips to the other man’s shoulder, pokes him a bit. Rust doesn’t stir so Marty grabs his shoulder properly and gives him a light shake. Nothing.

“Hey, man; did you hear that?” he says urgently, at normal volume, hoping he can blame the brittleness of his voice on the fictional noise. But Rust doesn’t react and Marty curses the night to high heaven because the nightstand lamp in on Rust’s side of the mattress and the fucking streetlamp is too dim to see if his chest is going up and down.

Jesus Christ, wouldn’t it be just precious if Rust kicked the bucket now just after he broke him out of hospital. Nothing suspicious about it. _Just an unfortunate coincidence, officer, why do you ask?_ What if Marty got him out of that place only to see him die in his own bed, after all their time apart? He wonders if someone can will himself to die.

He moves carefully, slowly, closing the space between them in a haze of cold sweat; he’s half-hoping Rust will open his eyes and catch him being a complete idiot so Marty can brush this dread off and go back to sleep. Finally, he presses his ear to Rust’s chest and hears the steady hammering of his heart, like a drum, a piston, undeniably alive. He rests one hand above the gauze covering the stitches, and feels the heat of the wound through the thin fabric.

Marty stays like that until his neck starts aching, then retreats to his side of the bed and waits for his eyes to get used to the dark.

 

***  
**

 

Next morning Marty wakes up to the sun in his face and Rust shifting beside him.

“Hey, you still kicking?” he asks, like he didn’t spend half the night making sure of that. “Hospital called last night; your doc tore me a new one. Gotta swing by in a bit to get your scripts and sign some papers saying it’s my fault if you keel over.”

Rust grunts, half asleep, half unimpressed, his tangled hair all over the pillow. “What, they tried to charge you with kidnapping or something?”

“Actually, she did. I assured her you were plenty willing when I stuffed you in the trunk, so she reconsidered.”

Rust hums a smile, looks finally a bit human. He tries to push himself up. “I gotta piss.”

Marty helps him sit and untangles the sheets from Rust’s hospital gown before getting out of the bed.

“Cover up, man. I don’t want to see your dick; it’s probably as dead-eyed and droopy as the rest of you.”

That startles a laugh out of Rust. He clutches Marty’s shoulder, in pain but unable to stop.

“Goddammit,” he mutters, still snickering.

“Shit, Rust. Stop it; you’re gonna pop them stitches.” Marty tries to sound stern but he’s chuckling as well. “Damn.” He can’t stop smiling because it’s a brittle, almost hysterical sound but, damn, he can count on one hand the times he’s ever heard Rustin Cohle laughing. Marty settles for pressing his hand to the bandage over Rust’s middle, softly, like he can keep the wound closed with the palm of his hand alone.

 

*

 

It’s almost ten when Marty comes back from the hospital; he’s carrying a small army of pill bottles and a mile long list of aftercare instructions. Rust is where he left him, slumped on the recliner in a pair of Marty’s sweats and a t-shirt, watching some nature documentary on the Discovery Channel.

“Hey.” Marty rattles the pills and tosses the papers on Rust’s lap. “It went better than I thought. I was half expecting to get tackled to the ground as soon as I walked in.”

“What’s all this?” asks Rust going through rehab pamphlets, and medical directions listed in bullet points.

“Maintenance manual. Gotta wash you and feed you like you’re a real boy.” He starts unloading the bottles onto the coffee table. “I did ask about giving you a shower, you stink of sick people and antiseptic. Doc says it’s fine, just have to soap those stitches real carful. So we’re doing that today. I’ll even wash your hair and brush it all pretty; give you a French braid.”

Rust scowls at him. “Yeah, I’d like to see you try.”

“Also, you’re on that diet for a few more days.”

Rust huffs like a moody teenager. “Come on, man. Enough with the fucking jello.”

“You had your guts cut in half, asshole. You can’t dive straight for the deep fried bacon. Jesus.” Marty’s got another bag from the convenience store; he takes out a bottle of apple juice, some grape jello and two jars of Gerber mush. Rust’s diet is not quite that bland but he hasn’t eaten in more than twelve hours and Marty doesn’t have a single fresh fruit in the fridge. “Sorry for the fucking baby food, but you need to take your meds, so this’ll have to do till I go get some proper groceries.”

When he looks up Rust seems frozen, like he’s forgotten how to breathe, eyes fixed on the two small jars sitting on the dinner tray. Marty’s about to ask what’s wrong but the question gets stuck in his craw; Rust’s baby girl was probably still small enough to eat some variation of this shit, at least every once in a while.

“Fuck. Rust, I didn’t think. I’m―”

Before Marty can take the jars away Rust reaches out and snatches the mango puree from the tray. The lid pops loudly in the heavy silence. “I ain’t eating that turkey vegetable shit; tastes like sugared puke.”

He doesn’t even wait for a spoon, just sticks his tongue in the mush, whiskers and all.

 

*

 

Marty does get caught, on the sixth night. Despite Rust’s steady recovery over the last few days Marty keeps waking up in the wee small hours, like clockwork, needing to make sure the other man’s alive and whole. He can’t get back to sleep until he’s felt Rust’s heartbeat against the shell of his ear.

He can’t explain this fucking paranoia; it sort of made sense that first day, with Rust still weak as a kitten, the way they left the hospital, but now it’s just ridiculous. It’s like some lame form of PTSD. Maybe it’s some leftover panic from their last moment in _that place_ , when Marty saw the lights and heard the sirens and finally let his body sag onto the floor, chanting Rust’s name like a spell. _Rust Rust Rust_. The wound in his chest burned like a brand but he only cared about the blood slipping hot and sluggish through his fingers. _Please God, don’t let him die now._

He passed out when the first of Papania’s men appeared on the archway.

Now he’s leaning over Rust, trying to catch the in and out of his breathing. He’s about to move to press the side of his face to the white t-shirt when Rust speaks.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He’s giving Marty an unfocused, squinty glare.

Marty almost jumps out of his skin. “Jesus fuck, nothing.” He moves back as casually as he can, avoiding eye contact.

“What the hell? Were you trying to kiss me or something?”

“Yeah, you fucking wish. Like I’d want to get close to that piece of road kill hanging over your mug.” He tries to scramble for a believable excuse but then thinks that the truth is so preposterous Rust won’t believe it anyway. “Just making sure you hadn’t kicked the bucket, you sleep like you’ve already gone into rigor mortis.”

“You thought I was dead.” It’s not a question, more like a deadpan reinterpretation of _you’re a moron_.

“Yeah, well; God knows you’re enough of a dick to croak in my bed. But you’re fine. Joy. Let’s go back to sleep.” He turns on his side, his back to Rust.

Rust hums, a deep, sleepy sound but doesn’t say a word. Marty can feel his gaze, heavy, on the back of his neck. It’s as good as a heartbeat.

 

*

 

A month trickles by almost without them noticing. Rust starts moving about without aid around the second week, hobbling at first, clinging to the walls and the furniture until his steps get surer and his gait straighter. He even tags along to the supermarket a couple of times, leans on the shopping cart and bitches about consumerism while Marty scans the shelves for his favorite brand of cookies. He’s off the special diet too, which is nothing short of godsend because Marty was getting really tired of steamed veggies and sautéed chicken breast.

He’s gotten over his compulsion of checking up on Rust while he sleeps but, as the man gets stronger, he starts dreading the day Rust decides to leave. Instead of waking up to see if he’s still alive Marty starts waking up to make sure he’s still there. He’s afraid one day he’s gonna come home from the store or the office, wake up one morning and Rust’s gonna be just gone. Like smoke, like the first time.

That day, after the station, when he first saw the truck in his rearview mirror Marty felt an instant surge of anger; not that roaring flare from their fight but a sort of simmering rage that made him want to lash out, to get away, to say every hurtful thing that came to mind. It wasn’t until he’d finally gotten home ―after the storage room, after that fucking tape― that he’d realized he wasn’t angry at Rust over of what happened with Maggie; by now it almost feels like something that happened without anyone’s control, like having your house trashed by a hurricane. Marty was angry at Rust for the time apart, for disappearing from his life without another word beyond _Nice hook, Marty_.

Maggie took the girls and left, and Marty thought he was going to fall to pieces because the first time, back in ’95, Rust had been there, with his asshole attitude and his empty house, but there; and Marty should have been able to keep something for himself, but instead he’d lost his marriage, his family, and his partnership in one fell swoop.

The guys at the bullpen wasted no time trash-talking Rust, declaring good riddance and trying to get Marty to spill the beans about the fight. Marty kept his mouth shut ―no need to reveal himself as a cuckold―, and because as much as he came to hate Rust during those first months, the other guys seemed to despise him for all the reasons that made Marty miss him most.

So a decade later, after gravitating back into Rust’s orbit and walking hand in hand into hell and out of it, Marty’s not too sure he can go back to keeping his distance. Maybe they were never really friends but they were partners, with all the weight and commitment the word implies. He wants Rust to stay ―in his life, in his corner― but a part of himself is still too proud to say it like that.

 

“Hey, Rust,” he begins one morning as they lie in bed, dozing and yawning in the first light of day. “If you get it in your head to take off, could you at least flip me off on your way out?”

He’s chosen this moment to bring it up because sharing a bed is something they do but do not acknowledge. It’s not like they sneak into bed after the other’s gone to sleep; one month in and they’ve already got a fucking bedtime routine of pajamas and tossing pillows on the floor. They read and talk in bed, they discuss Marty’s cases and squabble over the goddamned shopping list. But it’s like they’ve come to the silent agreement that men do not talk about this shit, and that’s just dandy for Marty; he’s hoping this moment is protected by that silence.

Rust turns to stare at him from the other pillow and gives him one of those infuriating slow blinks he unleashes when he’s trying not to react; Marty’s afraid he’s gonna take it as a hint that he’s overstayed his welcome and bolt. He steels himself and gets ready to show his hand because he remembers the last ten years all too clearly. He’ll get his point across even when he knows he won’t be able to say what he really means. _I’m fucking tired of being without you; I don’t think I can go back to living on my own._

But Rust just curls on his side and pulls the covers up to his chin, closes his eyes. “Guess I can do that.”


	2. Chapter 2

The client is a tall, sturdy man, roughly their age ―well, Marty’s age but, at this point, the few years between them hardly make any difference―, with a booming voice and an offhand attitude that reminds Rust of the bullpen at the station. Marty’s sitting at his office desk, charm at full force, smiling and nodding along with the man while Rust sits off to one side, doodling in his ledger after giving up on steering the conversation back to the case.

It’s the first time he’s come to the office properly, after Carcosa. Marty’s been sharing and discussing cases with him for a while, leaving files on the coffee table and asking his opinion on new cases, casual-like, probably congratulating himself on being all sneaky and subtle. Getting plastered all over the news for catching a mass murderer has done wonders for Hart Investigative Solutions and these days Marty can boast about having a waiting list. He’s even hired a secretary, a dark headed young thing with black fingernails and blasé manners. The last stitches in his gut came out a couple of weeks ago, and Rust has been able to move around and generally feel normal for a while now; so this morning, when Marty asked him to tag along for a meeting Rust had just nodded his head and put his shoes on.

The man has come to see Marty because he suspects his wife isn’t exactly faithful but, by the way he’s acting, it ain’t nothing more than an inconvenient. He organizes rough stock events and it only took a passing mention of Marty’s rodeo days to get them going about bronc riding and goddamned steer wrestling like they’re longtime pals. Rust watches from his corner, awkward and pretty much forgotten, and remembers that Marty is one of those men who enjoy shooting the shit and telling lewd stories at bars. Or at least he was once; used to put on his good ol’ boy face and pass for a common man.

Rust reminds himself that it isn’t exactly a mask; it’s who Marty is around people ―people who aren’t Rust―, people he feels the need to charm or impress, or get on his side. Rust hates it ―abhors the way it tastes like tin on his mouth― but he accepts that the good ol’ boy drawl is as part of Marty as all the bits he has a savage attachment to; his idiotic loyalty, his competence, the frankness in his eyes.

They never had that camaraderie of back slaps and boisterous jokes that seems to define male friendship. They only ever had tired roads and disagreements, but were bound together by secrets and the certainty of having each other’s backs. They’d come to love the other despite the incompatibility of their rough edges ―Marty would probably choose a less staggering word but, after all these years, Rust thinks _to thy own self be true_ ―, and now, ten years later, they’ve eased back into their partnership like they didn’t part with blood on their faces and nary a word.

“We’ll look into it and get back to you,” Marty says at last and the man raises to his feet.

“I’ll appreciate your utmost discretion.”

“Of course.”

He shakes Rust’s hand with two rough jerks and takes his leave with a hearty pat to Marty’s back. When they see him cross the parking lot Marty sits back on his chair, swings a bit, and lets out a huff of breath.

“What a prick. No wonder the wife’s cheating.” He rubs at his eyes. “Sorry, buddy. Wanted something a bit more interesting for your first case.”

Rust hums low in his throat. “Fifty bucks say it’s with one of his riders.”

“You know, I’m gonna pass on that because I think so too.” He looks at his watch and gets up. He smiles at Rust, his real smile, crooked and cornflower blue. “Come on, let me take you out for dinner, make up for that.”

Rust caps his pen and closes his ledger. “I could eat.”

 

*

 

“I’m back,” Rust calls as he closes the front door. The house is cool with the low hum of the AC; he can feel the sweat on the back of his shirt like a heavy hand plastered to his skin. He drops the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and opens the fridge to reach for a beer.

Marty says something from the back of the house but Rust doesn’t catch a goddamned word. He sticks his head in the hallway to yell back and sees the lonely laundry basket sitting by their bedroom door. The sight reminds him that they took their shirts to the drycleaners but he can’t recall if he was supposed to pick them up on his way back from the store.

Rust opens his mouth to ask Marty but stops short. His brain assaults him with a memory, a short circuit in his head that smells like dishwater and window cleaner: Rustin Cohle, three lifetimes ago, standing in his kitchen asking Claire if she’d remembered to pick up the dry-cleaning.

He can almost feel the two scenes superimposing in a fucked up episode of deja-vu, only twenty two years have gone by and he’s not married to his wife anymore, he’s living in domestic bliss with Marty fucking Hart.

“Hey,” Marty says, suddenly at his side. “Forgot about the damned detergent. We’re almost out.” Like the whole moment could get more ridiculously surreal.

Rust closes the fridge door, beer forgotten. “Marty, what the hell are we doing?”

The other man is going through the shopping bags like a curious raccoon. “We can start on dinner while the laundry’s going. Make some of that pasta salad thing you like.”

Rust shakes his head. “What am I doing here?” Marty frowns. “Here, in your house.”

He knows Marty’s gonna crack a joke before he even opens his mouth, and it makes him want to punch him in the throat.

“Well, if you vacuumed every once in a while we could say you’re my live-in maid.” There it is.

“Fucking funny.”

“You can always say you’re my kept man.” Another grin.

He glares at Marty, braces his hands on the counter to keep them from fisting.

“I fucking mean it, Marty.” He does; needs to know what the hell they are doing beyond making a half-assed attempt to make up for lost time, and fostering codependence. “What are we doing playing house, man?”

Marty finally gets it that he’s being serious. He scoffs. “We’re getting back on our feet, Rust. That’s what. I think we’re doing fine.”

From where Rust’s standing that excuse ran its course a long time ago. Marty made some comment about him leaving, back in the first days, but days turned into weeks and those weeks are now turning into months, and they’re as ‘recovered’ as they’re ever going to get.

“So, what, are we just gonna live together and work together now, after ten fucking years of pretending the other didn’t exist?”

“Is this your way of telling me you’re leaving?” Marty clenches his jaw, stares hard at the floor. He looks like he wants to say something else but sighs instead. “I don’t want you gone but If you want your own place, I understand.”

Rust should take his chance, get the hell out of this while he still can. They don’t exactly have the best record at playing nice; the smart thing to do would be put some distance between them before they get too close again. “That ain’t what I said.”

“Then shut the fuck up, Rust. We’re getting on with our lives; I want you here. You want to stay?”

Rust hasn’t wanted anything so bad in ages, to have something, someone of his own; but if this has an expiration date he’d rather hit the road right now.

“Till when?”

“Till we kill each other or something finally manages to take us down, alright?”

Marty doesn’t give him time to answer, just storms off and slams the office door. Rust sags against the kitchen counter, throat tight with something like relief.

 

*

 

“I don’t buy it.” Marty declares around a mouthful of beer. “The guy did nothing when the son was on full party mode, doing drugs and wrecking cars, but the moment the kid starts a band he has him killed?”

They’re in the living room going through their latest case; an elderly woman looking into her nephew’s disappearance, she thinks maybe the boy’s father had something to do with it.

“Everything burns with the right spark,” Rust shrugs. “Ask Maggie.”

He can actually hear Marty’s breath hitching, looks up to find him scowling.

“Why the fuck did you have to bring that up, man?”

“Just providing a handy example.” Because he’s never been able to not push things to see if they break.

“Yeah, well, keep your fucking examples to yourself.” Marty turns to look out the window; the low light of the approaching dusk makes him look old and pale. “Look, I wish I had reacted―”

It’s in this moment when Rust realizes that at least some part of Marty still thinks he left over the fight, over split skin and a broken taillight. The truth is Rust left because he couldn’t stand having being the blade used to wound him.

“We’ve had this conversation before.” Rust interrupts him. “The way I was back in ’02 wasn’t exactly conductive to reconciliations.” As much as he might regret the last ten years, Marty’s still the kind of man who needs to be told that things just happen to him instead of him making them happen. “We all made our choices; you, me, Maggie. What’s done is done.” Marty could have kept his fucking dick in his pants, Rust could have thrown her out the moment she started touching him, and Maggie could have filed for divorce like a fucking normal person.

Instead she hadn’t trusted herself to say no again and decided Rust was a price she was willing to pay. He doesn’t care anymore about the pain inflicted on him ―fuck, he’s more than used to it by now―, but he’ll never forgive her for using Marty’s love ―for Rust, for both of them― against him. He still has her half sobbed words carved on the inside of his skull. _He won’t live with this. This will hurt him,_ when what she’d meant was _you will hurt him because you’re the only other thing that matters_.

“What ifs aren’t worth shit, man. They’re just torture devices.” He looks at his partner, holds his gaze. “We’re alright now.”

“Still,” Marty says with a sigh and Rust can see in the spark of his eyes that he’s somehow managed to dispel the thick air around them. “Wouldn’t have let you get that fucking ponytail.”

 

*

 

Rust wakes up to a whimper. His eyes roam the darkness until he recognizes their bedroom ceiling; next to him, Marty moans again. Rust reaches out, closes his fingers on the other man’s side and shakes him. “Marty, open your eyes. Hey, man.”

This is a usual routine by now, six months haven’t done much when it comes to nightmares; Rust knows from experience that no amount of time will grant them dreamless nights, at least not for long. They’ve learned to pull the other out of that pit with a light shake and a mumbled reassurance, the pretense that nothing happened.

Marty jerks awake with a choked sob. “Rust.”

“It’s ok, man, it’s over.”

“Rust, you alright?” fingers close around his forearm.

“I’m fine. It was just a dream, Marty.”

“We were there.” He doesn’t need to ask for specifics to know he’s talking about the throne room at Carcosa. “After you shot him.”

Rust wants to tell him to shut the hell up; he finds himself in that moment often enough as it is. Dying with the void swirling above his head. Pulling the trigger only to find that Childress has already hacked Marty to pieces. Lost in the maze of twigs and corpses, alone, just wandering the dust like he’s in goddamned purgatory.

“I tried to reach you and I kept dragging myself toward you but I didn’t get any closer.”

Against all odds, Rust remembers the rasping sound of Marty crawling to him, somewhere behind his head, the heavy fall of his breathing ―just as it is right now― and the first touch of his fingers against the side of his face.

“I could see this puddle of blood growing around you, bigger and bigger,” Marty’s voice trips and shatters against the moonlight. “What’d be the fucking point of anything if I just lost you again?”

“You reached me, Marty. You got us out.” Rust gropes around until he touches the side of his partner’s neck, cards his finger through the short hair above his ear. He takes Marty’s hand and slides it underneath his wifebeater, holds it against the scar on his gut. “I’m here, man.”

Marty pulls him close, clumsy and blind, knocks their arms and knees together until they’re flush against each other. Rust lets him because he _knows_ , because he can still feel the softness of Marty’s voice that night outside the hospital, so gentle he could have lied on it.

 

*

 

The sky is bright blue but the winter chill creeps around the damp shadows left by the morning dew. The day has all the makings of a slow, lazy Saturday; birds chirping, cars passing unseen and almost unheard, the scent of coffee calling from the kitchen counter. Rust can hear the hum of the television from behind the bathroom door; he’s just taken a shower and is now standing in front of the fogged-up mirror, staring at the blurred stains that make up his face. Today is January 3rd.

He leans in until he can see the pinkish line running down his torso; thinks about being ran through, lifted off his feet, and dropped into a darkness so full of her. Sophia. The thought of her doesn’t hurt as much anymore; Rust’s come to realize that what he felt in the darkness, that everlasting warmth, was not just her love for him but his love for her as well. All the love he hadn’t been able to even approach without despair, without the weight of loss, suddenly made as pure as the first time he held her in his arms. Sometimes, in the dead of night, with his eyes closed and Marty breathing next to him, he gets a glimpse of that absolute, like a steady tide soaking his ankles.

It’s enough to go on.

He moves back and studies the tawny shape of his hair, plastered and cooling against his neck and shoulders; it’s getting too long again ―he’s trimmed it a couple of times with a pair of scissors he found in one of the kitchen drawers. At some point in the last ten years Rust just stopped caring about looking like a human being and let it grow almost as it pleased, barely noticing when it’d started going lighter with age. Now he pulls it back in his fist, away from his face, and looks; the mirror has started to clear.

Rust gets dressed, puts on his boots and grabs his jacket from the peg by the door. “I’m going out.”

Marty’s on the recliner watching TV, cup of coffee held in both hands. He looks up at Rust with a careful expression, perfectly aware of the date. “Alright.”

“Won’t be long.” Rust gets on the truck and idles a moment before pulling out of the driveway and driving straight to the barbershop.

 

When he gets back, Marty is at his desk, printing what looks like a new case file.

“Hey, Bollier called to give us the go ahead so― Holy shit!” he gapes at Rust with his jaw slacked for an endless moment. He lets out a huff of laughter. “Goddammit, just when I was thinking we could rent you out as Jesus come Easter.”

“Mmh, you shoulda said something.”

Marty comes to examine him up close, runs his fingers through the short bristles at his nape and the longer strands at the top of Rust’s head. “Fuck, man; it’s so good to see you looking human again. Well―” He glances down at his lips. “You do know they can also shave you, right?”

“Yeah, call it PTSD; I ain’t letting a stranger come at me with a straight razor.”

Marty beams at him like Rust’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever seen; his hands move to the back of his neck and pull forward. It’s a long, whole-hearted kiss, empty of anything but joy and raw affection.

Rust hums, sound so low it’s almost a purr. “I thought you weren’t doing that unless I shaved them whiskers.”

“What can I say, it don’t feel as godawful as it looks.”

“Well, don’t get used to it, it’s going.” He runs his hands down Marty’s arms and steps back, heads for the bathroom.

“Wait, wait, wait. I’ve got an idea; trim it real pretty first. I bet you’ll look like one of those old timey gentlemen. I’ll get the scissors.”

“Marty, get the fuck away from me.”

It’s a testament to how far gone Rust is that he not only stays still while Marty cuts at the moustache but also lets him take a picture of the results with his phone ―”I swear to God, Martin Eric Hart; if you show that to anyone I’m feeding you your balls for breakfast”.

When he’s done shaving he rinses his jaw and stares at his old face. There’s an echo in there, but he doesn’t look the way he did seventeen years back; his skin has gone leathery with age and too many cigarettes, his expression is less strained. Rust figures the one thing that’s the same is that Sophia and Marty are the only certainties for him. He wipes his face, turns off the light and follows the clattering in the kitchen, intent on returning the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so unoriginal; I feel like 2012 fic is a rite of passage in this fandom and I really need to believe they rode off into the sunset.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Chapter 3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3113795) by [mariesondetre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariesondetre/pseuds/mariesondetre)




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